Editing your writing cannot be neglected.
It’s important to make your work the best that it can be.
I love writing. When I get to put words to the page or screen it makes me deliriously happy. This is my jam, whatever genre I am working in. Writing is joy.
Editing, on the other hand, is less fun. At least for me, it is. I have no doubt that there are people out there who love to edit. To clean up the words and phrases and make a work sing in its clearest tone.
Love it or not, editing is a completely necessary evil. Without editing, you leave yourself open to typos, grammar faux pas, incomplete sentences, and a work that might be ok but could be good or even great.
I write at least one article a day. Most days I write more than that. I also do content for a professional website, some of which I write and some I am editing more than writing for publication.
Editing comes in a lot of different forms. When it comes to writing, in my experience there are three. Self-editing, professional editing, and combined editing.
How do these break down?
Self-editing
There are some who will stop and edit along the way. That may work for you, but for most that just turns into a form of procrastination. You don’t complete the work because you’re constantly stopping to tweak it and alter it.
That’s not to say this practice is all bad. You may, as you work on something, find that the point you began with has shifted. It may be necessary to go back and change it. That’s more about clarification and less about editing, to my mind.
For me, I need to finish what I start. Articles such as this can take me from twenty minutes to a couple of hours to write. It depends entirely on the flow, context, and focus on my part. Sometimes the words just fly out of my head and to the keyboard, so a lot of material gets out there quickly.
Once I am done with anything of this nature that I write – specifically under 5 pages – I step away. I go on Facebook, take a walk, meditate, or otherwise shift gears. Why? Because if I go right back to it it’s still too fresh.
When you grill a steak you need to let it rest. Otherwise, the juices within do not redistribute and it will not reach its full flavor potential. The same is true of the creative juices that go into writing. You need to let them sit.
When I do come back to my work to edit, I read it aloud. You’d be amazed by how many errors you pick up when you read something and HEAR yourself read it. If it sounds wrong it probably is. This helps to uncover that rather thoroughly.
This type of edit is good for short works. When they are longer, that’s another matter.
Hiring a professional
Once a work is longer it is a good idea to have someone else look it over. For 5-10 pages of non-fiction, this really can be anyone, in my opinion. You are still working on something relatively short and likely to the point.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t edit. You totally should. But another set of eyes will see things you miss. Having another reader or editor will catch stuff that might simply pass you by.
When it comes to longer works and fiction you need to hire a professional. Especially if you are self-publishing your work.
Major publishing houses edit everything. They make the work clear and precise and professional. If you are your own publisher this is even more important. There are lots and lots and lots of works out there that are crap. Half-assed. Lacking in proper grammar and solid sentence structures.
Your work might be brilliant. It could be insightful, inspiring, and ingenious. But if your grammar is garbage and your thoughts are hard to read that won’t matter.
A professional editor is going to help you make it better. There are a lot of people you can hire for editing, and you could pay as little as a couple hundred dollars up to several thousand dollars. An editor might just correct grammar and punctuation, or they might do a full contextual overhaul of your work.
Once your work has been edited, though, there is a last and super-important step.
Reconcile the edit
Not so long ago I sent out the first book in my forthcoming sci-fi series. Once it came back to me, edited, I certainly could have accepted all of the edits and started the publishing process. I am way behind from my intended publication date.
That, however, isn’t a good idea. Why? Because some edits you receive do not understand aspects of content.
This is especially relevant to fiction. For example, I had an editor suggest edits to the poetry of the prophecy that drives The Source Chronicles. It was an understandable suggestion – but in context unnecessary.
Hence why you need to go back over the edited work and do another edit of the edits yourself.
This is the part I dislike the most. I have to open both the copy returned to me by my editor and my own copy. Then I go over them – and see what has been changed. I can make the same change – or determine if it’s unnecessary.
Further, I might find a point that I missed along the way, too.
Your work should be the best that it can be
Editing is a necessary evil, but worth it. This is because it’s important to make your work the best that it can be.
Not only will your readers appreciate clarity and well-written ideas, but grammar snobs everywhere will be less critical and irksome.
You owe it to yourself to be the best writer that you can be. I have found that editing has made me a better writer. The first editor I ever worked with was the most expensive, but she also taught me the most.
I learned from her a better approach to the narration, perspective, and things to look for far beyond grammar, punctuation, and word choices. This made me a better editor, and while I do not enjoy editing as much as writing I understand the necessity of it.
Never stop writing, but before you share do some editing, whether on your own, with the eyes of a friend or loved one, or professionally. It’s an important distinction between an ok work, good work, or great work.
Which do you desire most to produce?
Thank you for taking part in my ongoing journey. Thank you for joining me, and for inspiring me and my words.
This is the forty-fourth article exploring the creative process. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
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